Surprise: You're having a date!

I have many excuses for not going on a date with my husband:
-We have a very limited number of people who can babysit Jaycee.
-Jaycee requires 50 minutes of medicine and airway clearance every morning and every night.
-Jaycee sleeps with a bi-pap every night and goes to bed at 8 pm, so that makes evening dates next to impossible.
-If she is even a tiny bit sick, she is usually home bound and requires even more medicines and airway clearance.
-Jaycee is very routine oriented. If I change her evening routine, she can get extremely uncooperative.
-Gosh, I'll admit it! I like routines too. Planning a date around our schedule requires too much thought and effort.

This year, these excuses have resulted in one magical date night for our anniversary. Yes, one. Any date that includes seeing the Godzilla movie must be special! We sort of had one more date night if you count the dinner we had while we attended a Down syndrome conference. My husband said the hours of classes we took before we got to that dinner made it not count. There have been several short lunch dates at local restaurants during the week while the kids were in school. So, we do go out just not anywhere special or the slightest bit romantic.

Last week, we had date night number 2 for the year.

Some thoughtful people from our church proved they could be private detectives by secretly gathering information about us, planning a date based around our interests, and a big surprise reveal for us.

The date plans were revealed in the middle of a fake interview at our home for what we thought was a video for church. It was clever. It was surprising.

I have had many surprises the past few years, the majority of which have been bad and negative. I honestly forgot how nice a good surprise felt. The kids received several presents. We received tickets to see our favorite Christian artist, Toby Mac, a hotel room, gas money, and a restaurant gift certificate.

I couldn't believe that our family was picked to receive a blessing like this. And I couldn't believe our church, which is attended by hundreds of people, thought of us and our family. The night we received the gifts, I couldn't sleep from excitement.

A few days later, I was still excited as we made our way to the concert. It was fun and uplifting. We got hours to talk to each other without interruption or thoughts of medicines. We stayed out until 11 pm; that's rare for us! We slept in until 8:30 in the morning (also rare). We traveled with 1 suitcase and no medical equipment! I missed my kids but enjoyed the time with the man who stands by me during all of our crazy ups and downs.

It was a date night that neither one of us will forget for a long time!

Thanks Crossroads Bible Church!